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These forums are a place where you can ask other young people advice on dealing with tough times and share your advice on what has worked for you. Please remember that it does not replace professional advice.

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Why can’t I take responsibility for my actions? Need help

I don’t know why, but I can’t take responsibility for my actions. I’m just really frustrated with myself. My family is so mad at me because I just can’t apologise when I do things wrong. I hate it because it ruins everything and I wish I could just flip a switch and change it but I just can’t and it makes me so angry. I’m just sick of being so toxic. I’m ruining everything because of it. My mum’s always angry and that makes my dad angry and then my sister gets angry and it’s all because I can’t take responsibility for my faults.

And it’s not that I think I have no faults. I KNOW I have faults. I dwell on the fact that I have faults. Like, I’m not not apologising because I think I’m always right. I never think I’m right. I know I’m wrong but I just can’t apologise.

It’s just that I’m always so snappy and that makes my family mad and then I just never apologise and it just makes such a toxic environment. I’m constantly on edge and even the littlest things can set me off and make me so angry and I just snap and then I don’t apologise and even as I type it I know it makes me sound terrible and I really feel it. It just always feels like there’s this pressure in my chest and I’m going to explode if I don’t let it out and that’s when I snap at people and I don’t mean to and I don’t want to but it just happens and I know I should apologise. Like, I know when I should apologise because I recognise the difference between right and wrong and all that but I just can’t apologise even though I know I’m wrong.

My family thinks I don’t apologise because I think I’m perfect and I’m always right, but that’s so wrong. I know I’m not perfect, like I really know. I think about my faults and imperfections all the time. I don’t know why I don’t apologise and I don’t why I’m always so irritable. It’s so frustrating.

I just want this to stop. I want to stop feeling like this and putting my family through hell. Please can anybody help? Sorry for the long post.

Welcome to beyond blue. Most of the users on the forums are you and me. We are not professional in mental health. One of the things that binds us together may be depression and anxiety, so remember that in this space you are not alone.

I can also understand some of the feeling that you have - being snappy, not wanting to apologize, being constantly on edge, etc. For myself, the things I have copied from your post are symptoms of depression and anxiety (and haemochromatosis). In fact, constantly being tense and on edge, or easily started is related to anxiety (at least for me).

I guess the first question is whether you have been able to speak about this with your parents? or a friend?

Perhaps you could also check out the K10 test on the beyond blue website? It is a small test and will give you a recommendation at the end as to what action (if any) to take. For example, it might suggest talking to a GP? If you got that recommendation would you be able to follow through?

Your mood might also be side-effect of how you are sleeping. Again that is what I found. So I wonder if you are tired in the day time? Are you able to sleep through the night? Or do you wake up? And think about things?

There are many factors that play into how we feel and the (re-)act toward others. You might want to have a look at the threads on the forum about grounding and mindfulness. In these threads you might find some ideas to help you relax etc. However, this will not help you with not apologizing. Which leads me the question...

You said that you recognise when you do thing wrong, but are unable to apologize. What are you afraid of if you were to say "sorry" to your parents if/when you did something wrong?

You don't have to answer that question here, but it might help you to work out the cause, and then be able the work on that to find a way forward.

So it sounds like you know you should apologise and kind of want to, but you can't (I think I've got that right).

I have a bit of a weird question for you but go with me -

What were to happen if you were to apologise? and I don't mean that in a snarky way - but if you were in a dream or something where you could automatically take it back or wake up and know that nothing has changed. But if you could apologise, what do you reckon that might look like? Or how might you feel?

It's kind of a weird question because I'm not really asking you to do it, just kind of imagine it - and all of it, in as much tiny detail as you can.

I have more to say (ha!) but I kind of wanted to leave that question with you - because ultimately I think it's about how apologising might makes you feel that stops you from doing it.

I have been able to speak about this with my parents, and the resolution never lasts because I always mess it up again.

Also, I’m not sure if I would be able to talk to a GP. I’m not sure how I would go about asking my parents to take me to one.

I always feel tired, really. I don’t wake up during the night, but I find it hard to get to sleep in the first place.

I don’t know what scares me about saying sorry. I can’t really pinpoint what it is, but I guess it just seems to be such a big task for me. In my mind it’s just so much effort and it exhausts me just thinking about it. Beyond that, I guess I just don’t like being wrong. I can say all of my faults to myself but I hate it when others point them out to me.

If i were to apologise, things would be better. My family would stop being mad and my home environment would be much less tense.

When I think about apologising I just start feeling really heavy. Like there’s this pressure in my chest that’s just weighing me down. It always makes my heart start beating like crazy and just makes me feel all panicked. I just hate how guilty I feel when I do something wrong. Apologising doesn’t make the guilt stop though.

Oh that makes sense. I'm so glad that you identified that because it's probably not easy to do!

I'm a little bit the opposite in that I say sorry too much, but I think when we apologise sometimes it can make us feel very vulnerable and very small. When we say sorry we are forced to suddenly take on all this responsibility that it was our fault and that we are responsible. That in itself is scary. It's a lot easier to not want to do it and to get angry. It can become like a little armour shield, because it helps us feel safe. Does any of that make sense or resonate with you?

I definitely resonate with that feeling of being very vulnerable and small when saying sorry. I don’t like feeling that way. I like to feel like things are under control, because when things aren’t under control I get really panicked. I guess getting angry helps me keep things more under control than apologising does.

I'm really glad that resonates with you! So I guess you can probably see now that this is probably why you don't apologise. This armour of wanting to keep things under control stops you from feeling vulnerable, small, panicky or angry. So it serves a great purpose.

The really hard part now is figuring whether or not it's worth feeling those things. So the pro's of apologising would be that your family would stop being mad and things would be less tense, but the con's would be that you risk feeling all these feelings.

Both of them make sense and I don't think that there's an easy choice. The only thing that I'll add is that I think because you never apologise the feelings are like maximum level, where as if you were to do it more often then it's probably going to feel less intense and be a lot easier. Perhaps if you wanted to apologise you could start with something that felt small rather than trying to 'jump in the deep end' if that makes sense.

I thought I'd just chime in here because I've been working on apologising too.

Like you, apologising makes me feel really panicked inside because all of a sudden I feel like I have lost control of the situation. If I don't verbally admit wrongdoing, then in the external world I feel like I can't be attacked. But, of course, it just isolates me instead.

For me, the hardest thing is to apologise "properly" by basically spelling out what I'm apologising for (ignoring) and why (it made you feel like you have no voice). It's easy for me to just say sorry like it's just a word, but if I have to stop and spell it out, I find that really hard.

I started apologising by taking small steps like romantic_thief suggested. In public, when I needed to apologise for bumping into someone for example, I'd say "I'm sorry for bumping into you". It didn't really matter if they were listening or not, but it was all just practice. With friends and family, I would apologise for small things like leaving my cup out or whatever. And I'd make sure I'd say what I was apologising for, and make sure to look at their face.

The other thing I started doing which helped was I started thanking people in a very similar way. I found proper thank yous really hard because of the same reason, and so doing that has helped me a lot too.

I still struggle a lot with both sorrys and thank yous, but getting there slowly.